RAQUEL CASESNOVES FERRER and DAVID SANKOFF TRANSMISSION, EDUCATION AND INTEGRATION IN PROJECTIONS OF LANGUAGE SHIFT IN VALENCIA

ABSTRACT. We assess the relative importance of demographic and linguistic processes for the evolution of competence in understanding, speaking, reading and writing Catalan in the Autonomous Community of Valencia, Spain. Our projections involve cohorts defined by age, sex, geographic division, and language competence level, and incorporate sociolinguistic models of transmission, acquisition and immi-grant integration. Based on projections for a large random sample of scenarios, mul-tiple regression shows that school acquisition, immigration and linguistic integration of immigrants outweigh other processes in their long-term effects on competence levels. KEY WORDS: bilingual acquisition, Catalan, demolinguistic projection and simu-lation software, geolinguistics, language revitalization, language shift, linguisti